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HOW MUCH SHOULD WE EAT?
The [article] (signed “M.D.”) with the above title which we published in the [July number] has, as we anticipated, aroused considerable discussion. [One interesting criticism] appeared in the [August number]. We now publish two further contributions, to be followed, in our [next issue], by two further articles by [Dr Rabagliati] and [Mr Ernest Starr].—[Eds.]
I
As one who has tried the low proteid diet, and came to grief on it, I desire to set my experience against that of Mr Voysey,[9] and to assert that, if it is true for him, it certainly is not true for me. Mr Voysey indulges in many loose and generalised statements which do not help the average man or woman in the least. I imagine it is these that “M.D.” has in mind when he advises a certain standard of diet, below which it is not safe to go. If Mr Voysey can, as Horace Fletcher can, exist on a very low proteid diet, that does not prove that all men and women can do the same and be healthily active; it only shows that he and Fletcher are exceptions to the average person, and that it may be dangerous to follow their example. For most men, “M.D.'s” proteid standard is not so nauseating as he finds it. Here is a specimen dietary for a day, for a man of ten stone, following, as most of us do, a sedentary occupation:—
- 3 oz. cheese.
- 9 oz. bread.
- 8 oz. vegetables and salad.
- 8 oz. fruit.
- 1½ pints milk.
Will any average person say that that quantity, divided into three meals, would be nauseating to him? And is that diet so very expensive that it would be beyond the means of an agricultural labourer in any country? It is certainly no mockery. The cost to such a labourer would probably not exceed 3d. or 4d. Of course the diet can be made as expensive as one chooses, and widely varied.